Google Apps for Education Frequently Asked Questions

What does Google Apps for Education (GAE) do for Beloit College?
GAE allows us to increase capacity (larger mailbox sizes, larger attachment sizes), provide an excellent webmail system, and provide a calendaring system for everyone.

Can I install other Google add-ons or applications available through the Google Apps Marketplace?Any application not officially approved for activation is considered non-standard and not supported by IT. For more information about non-standard software, please refer to our Software Standards Policy.

What are the benefits of using GAE? GAE allows users to access their mail, calendar, documents, etc. anywhere the internet is available. With GAE users have the option of using the Gmail web client or to continue using the email client they are currently using (Outlook, Entourage, etc.)
How much space do I have for email and Drive in GAE?
Email: 25 GB (and growing) of storage in your email account.

Sites (web pages): Beloit College has a combined total of 100 GB for everyone. There are no individual quotas. There is a 20 MB attachment size limit for Google Sites.

Drive: You have 5GB of space. Google Documents and documents converted to Google format do not count against this limit.

Docs: Each doc can have a maximum size of 500K, plus up to 2MB per embedded image.

Spreadsheets: Each can be up to 256 columns, 200,000 cells, or 100 sheets--whichever is reached first. There's no limit on rows.

Presentations: Files in .ppt and .pps formats can have a maximum size of 10MB or 200 slides; files uploaded from the Web can be up to 2MB; emailed files can be up to 500K.

PDFs: You can store up to 10MB per PDF from your computer and 2MB from the web in your Docs list, up to 100 PDFs.

If GAE is free to educational institutions like Beloit College, how does Google make money?
Google has three objectives with GAE. First, Google has its roots in education (Stanford University) and wishes to contribute to the educational world by offering its products with no out-of-pocket institutional expense.

Second, Google hopes to make lifetime Google users out of all faculty, staff and particularly students. Their hope is that graduates will continue to use Gmail and its associated products for the rest of their lives and perhaps even bring these products into their future business world.

Third, Google's revenue flow is generated by delivering context-sensitive advertisements to the users of its products (e.g. Gmail and Google). When students graduate and if they choose to continue using Gmail, context-sensitive ads would be delivered to them through the Gmail interface.

Can Google change functionality?Yes, Google is constantly enhancing their functionality.

Where can I find more information about Google's terms of service?Please review Google's User Policy.

Who do I call if I have problems with or questions about GAE?
Please contact IT Support.

Privacy

What are the Security and Privacy Issues with GAE? What happens with our email when it sits on Google's servers? Is Google reading my mail?
Google's (including GAE) most salient feature is its fantastic searching ability. GAE makes all of its components (Gmail, Calendar, etc.) searchable by the end-user. In order to deliver this feature, Google scans all email and calendar data and indexes the information to make it searchable by the end-user and only the end-user. During the searching and indexing, Google accumulates aggregate, non-personal information in order to provide better services.

So, is my data private with GAE?Yes.

Google does not own your data.

Google does not share your data. There are a few exceptions in Google's Privacy Policy (court order, imminent threat to life).

If my email, address book and calendar information is stored off-campus on Google's servers, who owns this data? Beloit College owns this data.

Will Google access my data for any purposes?Beloit College has a Data Confidentiality Agreement with Google in order to assure that information stored by students, faculty and staff in the Google core applications is protected. Core applications include Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Talk, Google Docs, Google Sites, Google Video and Google Contacts. Content in Google applications not considered a core application are subject to data mining by Google, including situations where the web access to the content is restricted. This includes applications such as Google+, Google Analytics, Google Blogger, Google Picasa & Web Albums and Google Reader.

Will my email address change with GAE?
Faculty and staff who already use an @beloit.edu address will keep the same address.

I'm already a Gmail user. Can I combine my existing Gmail account with GAE at Beloit College?No. All Beloit College GAE users will have a username@beloit.edu address; this will remain unchanged with GAE at Beloit College. You can set up Gmail forwarding from either your personal Gmail account to GAE at Beloit College or vice versa.

Can I still use Outlook/Entourage (or other clients)with GAE?
Yes. If you are using Outlook, IT recommends using Google Apps Sync for Outlook.
For all other email clients, you can set up your client with an IMAP or POP connection. Basically IMAP is a two-way connection with the mail server and POP is a one way download of mail from the server.
Setup Instructions:IMAP SetupPOP Setup

Why don't I receive an email when I send a message to a mailing list (or alias) that I'm on? When you send a message to any mailing list you subscribe to, Gmail sometimes automatically skips your inbox and archives the message to save you time and prevent clutter. The message will appear in your inbox if someone responds to it or if there is an error delivering the message. If you'd like to view your message, you can find it in Sent Mail or All Mail.
Is there a way to move all my email from Outlook (other clients) into GAE? Yes, but there are multiple steps involved in moving mail. Please contact the IT Help Desk for assistance with moving your mail.

I am outside the United States, why can't I access my email?
It is not always possible to open http://mail.beloit.edu while in some countries because of Internet filtering that is done in those specific countries. However, some individuals have successfully used http://mail.google.com/a/beloit.edu outside the US.

Why are some emails grouped together and can I turn that off?
Gmail groups all replies with their original message, creating a single conversation or thread. You are able to turn off the conversation view by going to Gmail Settings and then setting the conversation view on the General tab to off. More information about conversations and instructions for turning them off are available on Google's conversations page.

What is available with Google Drive?Google Drive includes Google Docs (Documents (similar to Microsoft Word), Spreadsheets (similar to Microsoft Excel), Presentations (similar to Microsoft PowerPoint), and Forms (Google's survey tool)). Users can also upload files. Google Drive offers a downloadable application to sync files on your computer with your storage on Drive.

What types of files can I upload to Google Drive?You can upload any file on your computer to Google Drive..

Collaboration

What if a shared document/calendar is owned by someone who is leaving the college? If possible, a new owner should be identified and ownership should be transferred. Ownership cannot be currently transferred on Google Spreadsheets so spreadsheets should be copied and recreated with the new owner's account. Ensuring ownership is changed is the responsibility of the department owning the document.